>>What is the Federal crime here?
Not sure either - and as far as I am concerned if a *private* college accepts large donations in exchange for admittance, its probably well within their rights - but one charge that may sting here is if they basically paid to get their kid in, and then wrote off that $500K ‘donation’ as a charitable contribution, that is definitely fraud - you can’t get something of value in exchange fora tax-deductible contribution.
Besides that, haven’t seen which specific laws were broken.
Athletic directors and coaches too the money.